Groupon

Group+Coupon=Groupon, pretty cool play on words, eh?

Hi there! I was just browsing around the ol' internets today when I stumbled upon this pretty cool website. It's called "Groupon". Here's the basics of it. Company wanting to increase business tells Groupon "Hey, dude, I need business. Could you sell these 100 coupons for me?" Groupon replies "Sure dude! I'd love to! Business will be booming!" Or something like that.

Here's how it works:
-You sign up(free account)
-View the deal of the day
-Buy said deal

Cool thing is, you can also buy them as gifts. For instance, today's deal is $99 for a one night weekend stay ($49 for a weeknight stay) at a very nice hotel near KC. I say that would make a great gift for a couple celebrating their anniversary, a birthday, or a surprise for the wifey!

Some of the past deals include: $12 "Ghosts and Gangsters Tour" originally $25, $29 for a One-Hour Massage of Your Choice at Rejuvenate Mind-Body Wellness Center in Lee's Summit originally $65, and a $45 Zip Line adventure at Zip Line USA originally a $95 value!

Guess what?! They also have a cool app available for the iPhone and in the Android Marketplace. The user interface is very simple and easy to navigate.

RECOMMENDATION: Check out this site before you go on any trips, chances are they have a deal near the city you'll be going to and you may be able to get some cheap lodging, food, drink, or fun!

Yeah...

I feel like writing a post tonight, I just don't really have a topic. Check this link out for some ways to save some money on your insurance (NO GEICO!!!!):

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20100922/ts_usnews/7waystosavemoneyoncarinsurance

Other than that, I got nothing else tonight. Later!

Starting Up Again

Okay, real quick post. I'm going to start blogging again. It's been about a year and alot has gone down. I'm going to start fresh.

My name is Justin. I'm soon to be separating from the United States Army here in a couple weeks or so. Welcome to my journey. Welcome to my head.

The content of this blog will vary. Sometimes I'll talk about ways to save money. Sometimes I'll talk about music. Or the Chiefs. Or computers. Or maybe, I'll just vent.

I thank you for reading this and I hope you'll click the ads (every time you click, a couple pennies click my way if ya know what I mean)!

3 Must Have (and 3 Should Have) Programs for Windows

While on the phone with my wife tonight, I started to tell her about some of the new programs I had installed on my laptop to make it run faster (not that it really needed it). She decided to get on her home desktop and try to explain to me all the problems she's been having. After downloading and installing several new programs, she seems to be running a bit faster, so I decided to compile my own list of “Must Have” Windows Programs, plus a couple “Should Have” programs.

Must Have:

1. Anti-Virus Software – AVG Anti-Virus – There are several Anti-Virus applications out there and they all pretty much do the same job, that is, quarantine and remove virus'. You could easily go to Best Buy and pay a good amount of money for the latest edition of Norton Anti-Virus, or you could go to download.com and get AVG Free for, you guessed it, FREE! Now, why should you trust a free program? Without getting into all the technical what-have-you, just ask the 215,000,000+ users. That's not a typo. More than Two Hundred and Fifteen MILLION users! AVG must be doing something right! Get it here: AVG Free 8.5.406

2. Malware Protection – Ad-Aware – Malware is fancy talk for Malicious Software. Basically, it's software that uses your programs and information without your permission! Malware is a big time security risk, and Ad-Aware helps by finding and neutralizing Malware threats. Why Ad-Aware? Free. Why not Ad-Aware? You don't get the maximum capabilities with the free version. However, if you spend the $27.96 on the full version, you get the full virus dictionary as well as heuristics and registry protection, along with (what I feel should be included in the free version but isn't) a scan scheduler. If you don't think it's going to work, just ask one of the other 333 million plus users. Try out the free version here: Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition

3. Clean-Up Utility – CCleaner – I just installed this program tonight and I'm already in love with it. What this excellent utility does is remove all those annoying temporary files that love to eat up your available RAM and slow down your computer, as well as point out files that aren't necessarily needed, like multiple Internet browsers. It pointed out that I had IE8, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari (all internet browsers) and recommended that get rid of all but one. Go ahead and download it, it's free and very simple to use! Get it here: CCleaner

That concludes the “Must Have” section. If you throw those three applications in with the standard Windows Firewall and Disk Defrag, you'll keep your computer running quick and protected. I'm going to continue on with some programs that are good alternatives to some already on your computer or just overall good, useful programs.

1. Mozilla Firefox – Internet Browser – Firefox is an Open-Source internet browser that brought tabbed browsing into the mainstream, has innovative security measures and is more customizable than a Honda Civic. Oh yeah, it's free. Download it here: Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2

2. OpenOffice.org – Microsoft Office Alternative – About 6 months ago I made the decision to completely delete Microsoft Office and Microsoft Works off my laptop. I made the integration to OpenOffice seamlessly. OpenOffice is free, compared to paying $679(!) for the comparable Microsoft Office Ultimate. Best part: you can save your OpenOffice documents as MSOffice documents. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, even PDF! Don't pay for any of that ever again here: OpenOffice.org

3. GIMP – Photo and Image Editor – As a huge fan of free stuff, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a must have. A going trend these days is doctoring up photos, be it of yourself or making humorous pictures. Why pay $63(the cheapest, most up-to-date I could find on Amazon) when you could have a very similar product for free. Stop wasting money here: GIMP 2.6.7

There you have it, 6 programs to help make your life just a little bit better, easier, and put a couple extra bucks in your pocket. You may be saying to yourself, why is he talking so much about free stuff? He must be one cheap guy! I'll explain myself like this: the current economy is in shambles. In short, it's a complete wreck. Just by switching to OpenOffice and GIMP, I saved my family $200! For a young family or a struggling college student 200 bucks can make a difference. Think about it next time you're having Top Ramen for dinner for the 12^th straight night.

Keys To Being Fit

I have over the past year or so been asked to assist a number of my fellow soldiers in getting fit and at the right weight. Well in doing that I have done a TON of research and, upon my findings, here is the abridged version of my Keys to Being Fit.

There are really 2 keys to weight loss: diet and cardio. We'll start with the diet.

The diet is by far the most important facet of good health. You must take in all the right nutrients or your body will not work correctly. Let's do a quick analogy: your body is a lot like a car engine. There are many different components to a car engine and each one requires a different fluid, amount of electricity, etc. If your car's engine is missing something, it won't run correctly. The same goes for your body. If you take away too much of something ( i.e. carbs, protein, etc.) you are depriving your body of what it needs to run at peak performance.

So enough with the geeky mumbo jumbo...here's the stuff you want:

Eat 3 square meals a day in addition to at least 2 snacks.
Live by the food pyramid (www.mypyramid.gov) as this is the most important part of your diet
On average you should consume between 1800-2300 calories a day
Eat a lot of protein and fiber, those two use more calories to digest (build muscle and burn fat by eating!)

Sample Diet:

-Breakfast: 1 Cup instant oatmeal with a handful of almonds, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and a banana or ½ a can of fruit in light syrup with 2 cups of coffee.
-Snack: 2 String Cheese Sticks with a piece of fruit and a glass of milk
-Lunch: Turkey Sandwich on wheat bread with American Cheese, mustard and all the veggies you want with a side of veggies. Wash it down with unsweetened Iced Tea.
-Pre Workout: A second Turkey Sandwich with cheese and meat only (excellent pre workout snack)
-Post Workout: Chocolate Milk and a handful of almonds.
-Dinner: BBQ Pork Chops with baked sweet potatoes topped with Smart Balance and Cinnamon, canned green beans, and a whole wheat roll. Washed down with a Light Beer. (Michelob Ultra is the choice beer for dieters, FYI.)

You can always adjust this to your personal tastes and just email me if you need help with a swap question. I can normally find a healthy alternative for any food you can throw at me.

Healthy “Real Food” Recipes:
Mens Health: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/contentlist.do?site=MensHealth&channel=nutrition&category=food.for.fitness&type=recipe

Exercise:

The worst part of losing weight is the exercise. Cardio is essential to losing weight. Walking, swimming, kayaking, running, tennis, racquetball, biking, hiking, basketball, soccer, etc. etc. etc. 20 minutes per day 4 days per week minimum. When I personally was going through my biggest weight loss stage I was running 4-5 miles a day, 5-6 days a week. When I was trying to get all cut up when I first got to Cuba, I was running 6 miles daily, swimming for 30-45 minutes on top of 1 hour of weight training daily. 7 days a week.

Point Blank: You must do cardio. And remember this: you're only going to get results for what you put into it. I can give you all the direction in the world and get you started, but ultimately it falls in your lap. Don't let that be words of discouragement, but words of a challenge. Are you up for that challenge?

The First of Many Top Lists!

I've been thinking about music quite a bit today and thought I'd compile my top ten list of favorite songs. I started to think, and I came to the realization that I don't think I could pick just ten songs. So I decided to categorize. Today's category: Guitar. Five of my favorite songs based on the guitar playing.

#5: Hey There Delilah / Plain White T's – I base the #5 pick off the soothing melody that Tom Higgenson plays so well. This is one of those feel good songs, you know the kind of song that comes on the radio on your way home from a horrible day at work, that makes you just feel better. Just because it's not a finger splitting metal lick, it doesn't mean it isn't a great guitar piece.

#4: November Rain / Guns N Roses – What can I say? Slash. Long song. Great song! The solo at the end is just awesome. This song tends to leave me speechless. It is right now.

#3: Throttleneck / Brad Paisley – A great country guitar song? The answer to that question is: Play Brad, play. Throttleneck has to be some of the greatest 5 minutes of non vocal music. Just play it, you may understand why I like it so much.

#2: Lonely Day / System of a Down – Daron Malakian is quite the strange one, but he is also quite talented on that guitar! The melancholy ballad that Daron's smaller frame belts out is only matched by the incredible guitar solo. The speed of the picking towards the end of the solo is what I like to call amazing. I dare somebody to try and argue this pick.

#1: Letters To God / Boxcar Racer – This pick will probably be a little questionable. Believe me, there is justification. This is my list. My tastes decided this pick. I love both the electric guitars and acoustics. I love a song that gives you goosebumps. This song has all three! It all starts out with a smooth acoustic melody, leading into a piano solo, and then it kicks into overdrive! The electric kicks in and the boom picks up. This I believe has got to be, in my opinion, the perfect song. Great lyrics, great drums, but the thing that sells this song is the dynamic guitar parts. Just check it out. Do it. DO IT NOW!!!

Please feel free to comment and leave me your top 5 guitar songs!

Intro/Headed Back

Here we go again. I've started a new blog. This one should be more interesting. The intent is to, sort of, chronicle my time away from home and my random thoughts.

The thoughts right now are mixed. On one hand I'm ready to get back to work and accomplish my mission. On the other hand however, I have a great family I'm leaving behind. The past few weeks I've been home loving life, and now I'm going back to Cuba.

I had such a good time on leave. Michelle and I took Gavin to the zoo, the park, we rode the little train, he went on his first fishing trip, and so much more! I can't believe how big he's getting! Now, I get to drop all of that and go to work. For those of you who don't know, I work at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There's not too much I can talk about concerning my job, but I can tell you it sucks. Long, long, long days, with little to do in our little off time. In short, it sucks. I hate leaving such a good place to go and hate life for the little bit in a bad place. Sure, it'll be over soon enough, but too many tears have been shed over this.

What am I going to do about all this? Not too much I can do. Notice I said "not too much" and not "nothing". I am going to do some things. I'm going to start busting my backside to get my degree. I'm going to make the best of the bad situation and come out strong. I'm going to come home. Plain and simple.